Specialisms

• Film Studies
• German Literature
• German Society and Culture
• German Studies

Research Overview

My research is highly interdisciplinary and lies in the areas of modern and contemporary Austrian literature, film, visual culture, and memory studies. The legacy that Austria's past continues to exert on its present constitutes my principal research interest. I am the author/editor of three academic books. My first book, Walking Through History: Topography and Identity in the Works of Ingeborg Bachmann and Thomas Bernhard (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2013), was the winner of the 2011 Peter Lang Young Scholars Competition in German Studies. I was also the recipient of the 2010 Sylvia Naish Research Student Lecture prize for my doctoral work, awarded by the Institute of Modern Languages Research, University of London. My second book, entitled The Long Shadow of the Past: Contemporary Austrian Literature, Film, and Culture (Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2017), was published in June 2017. The monograph undertakes close readings of key contemporary Austrian literary texts, films, and memorials, which treat the legacy of Nazism and the Holocaust, examining what these reveal about the evolving memory culture in contemporary Austria. The book has been widely reviewed, was included in CHOICE's 2018 Outstanding Academic Titles, and a paperback edition was published in February 2020. I am also the sole editor of the multi-authored volume, New Perspectives on Contemporary Austrian Literature and Culture (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2018), arising from an international conference on Contemporary Austrian Literature, Film and Culture (CALFAC 2015), which I organised at the University of Nottingham in April 2015. 

In addition to the above-mentioned books, I have published 20 papers in peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes, and given over 40 conference/seminar papers at international and national conferences and seminars. Since 2009, I have regularly conducted archival research in Austria. I have worked with Ingeborg Bachmann's literary estate in the Austrian National Library (during my PhD work), and carried out biographical research on the Austrian modernist writer Hugo von Hofmannsthal at the University of Vienna archives (during my work at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for the History and Theory of Biography, Vienna, 2010-2012). During the course of my Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship (2012-2015), I undertook two further research visits to Vienna, Austria, in order to carry out research at the Austrian National Library and the Documentation Centre for Modern Austrian Literature, and to interview writers and filmmakers.

I welcome enquiries from potential postgraduate students on topics in my areas of expertise.

Current Research

With the support of the Aberdeen Humanities Fund Development Trust Research Award (2019-2021), I am currently embarking on a new research project on evolving cultural representations of Austrian resistance during the Second World War.

Knowledge Exchange and Public Engagement

• Director’s Cut with Ruth Beckermann, University of Aberdeen’s May Festival, 25 May 2019. Organisation of film screening of The Waldheim Waltz and Q&A with renowned Austrian documentary filmmaker Ruth Beckermann. Further to financial support provided for the event by the George Washington Wilson Centre for Visual Culture, I secured additional funding for the event from the Ingeborg Bachmann Centre for Austrian Literature and Culture at the IMLR London, the Austrian Cultural Forum London, and in-kind support from the University of Aberdeen AV department. Further information is available in this University press release: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/news/12992/. The Q&A with Ruth Beckermann may be viewed via the University of Aberdeen YouTube channel: https://bit.ly/2Oilpnk.

• As Co-Director of the George Washington Wilson Centre for Visual Culture (LLMVC), I am responsible for the joint running of a full programme of research and public engagement events related to visual culture.

Collaborations

Together with Dr Dora Osborne (University of St Andrews) and Dr Frauke Matthes (University of Edinburgh), I co-organised a conference on ‘The Politics of Contemporary German Culture’ at the University of St Andrews, held on 26-27 April 2019. The conference focused on the issue of how the contemporary cultural landscape in Germany and Austria is being shaped by current political concerns and to consider, through dialogue between academics and practitioners, how this affects German Studies as a discipline and a practice. Five themed panels focused on political or politicized aspects of contemporary life that have become increasingly significant for German and Austrian culture today: market forces, Europe, resurgent nationalism, memory and memorialization, and (German) language.

A blog post about the conference can be viewed here. A special issue of the Edinburgh German Yearbook (vol. 14, published by Camden House), which will include chapters arising from selected papers originally presented at the conference, will be published in 2021.

The conference was made possible thanks to the generous support of the Arts and Humanities Research Council - AHRC Open World Research Initiative “Cross-Language Dynamics: Reshaping Community” at the Institute of Modern Languages Research, the School of Modern Languages at the University of St Andrews, the Moray Endowment Fund of The University of Edinburgh, and the University of Aberdeen.

Together with Dr Ernest Schonfield (University of Glasgow), I co-organised a conference on the landmark Austrian author Thomas Bernhard, held virtually (in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic) on 17-18 September 2020. The conference was supported by the Goethe Institute Glasgow. Additional conference sponsors were the Austrian Cultural Forum London, the Ingeborg Bachmann Centre for Austrian Literature and Culture at the Institute of Modern Languages Research London, the University of Glasgow, and the University of Aberdeen. Please see https://bernhardglasgow2020.wordpress.com/ for further details. An online exhibition of photo-illustrations by Heiko Berner for Bernhard’s Ein Kind/A Child accompanied the conference. The bilingual exhibition catalogue was published in December 2019 and may be viewed here. An edited volume, arising from the conference, is planned for 2021. 

Supervision

I am first supervisor to Lauren Cuthbert (2020-), whose PhD in German focuses on films made by the GDR documentary filmmakers Heynowski and Scheumann about the Vietnam War. I act as second supervisor to Denis Kneip (2019-), who is undertaking a practice-based PhD in Film & Visual Culture, examining the role of narrative and the cinemafication of computer games.

I welcome enquiries from potential postgraduate students on topics in my areas of expertise.

Research Funding and Grants

Aberdeen Humanities Fund Development Trust Research Award (2019-2020, extended until 2021 due to Covid-19 travel restrictions) 

Friends of Aberdeen University Library Collection Development Award (2018)

Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship (2012-2015)

AHRC Doctoral Studentship (2007-2010)